‘One man down. I repeat one man down. Requesting backup.’
From my sitting position, my back reclined on the kitchen counter acting as a makeshift cover, I stared at my partner, Sergeant Musa. His lifeless body laid spread-eagled on the floor, the blood seeping from his temple had began to morph into a bizarre halo around his head. Even in death Continue reading
People get killed by drunks everyday across the globe. But you died young and people don’t like that. Your grandma who had died of stroke was bitter when she saw you. She was crying, she couldn’t look at you – with your head that had become a big mass of squashed bone and flesh. The dead don’t bleed.
You wanted to cry. Continue reading
Mirror on the wall
look at me while
I tell you tomorrow
you want to know
who will it be
then search no more
I will be your guide.’
The ominous song woke Chidi from her sleep. It was 12 AM on the dot and the night was chilly and silent. Despite the cold, perspiration still Continue reading
They said the darkest hour comes right before dawn.
How fitting they called this place the Isle of Death’s Shadow. Not even the moisture dripping from gnarled branches of this cursed forest could quench the fire in his throat.
He shivered as he passed the poles displaying the disembodied heads Continue reading
They sauntered into the gloom of the desert cave. The blood splatters on the ground made him caress the dagger by his side. Whatever valuable this strange man had found, it certainly wasn’t worth Musa’s life. They found the box with the tarpaulin cover.
“It is there.” The man told Musa, his voice quavering Continue reading
“Blue or red wire?” I said into my com, the camera fixated on the explosive on the floor before me, transmitting the live images to Police HQ. The digital screen attached to the bomb glowed, the timer reduced as seconds ticked away. 40 seconds left.
…39…38…
“Cut the red wire.”
I stood outside Mike’s house, the cold harmattan air caressing my tear stained face. I was heartbroken. I had snuck out of the house, against my father’s “I don’t want to see your legs outside” to Mike’s house because I wanted to give him a little Christmas surprise.
I had gotten the surprise instead when I let myself into his house. I walked into Continue reading
“Not everyone knows my fiancée’s death wasn’t an accident. Even I didn’t know at first. Carbon monoxide poisoning is what they said. He left his generator set on all night, pulled a little too close to his bedroom window, they said. He died in his sleep, they said.” Amauche is looking down at her tied hands, but her gaze is unfocused, mind drifting somewhere in the past. “Victor was a deep sleeper; he never left his
Parasitic Twin. Fetus in fetu. Vanishing twin syndrome.
According to experts, some pregnancies start out with multiple foetuses. For some yet to be verified reason, during the first trimester, one of them may be absorbed by another twin, multiple or placenta. This foetal resorption is either partial or complete. The partial type leads to the discovery of extra limbs and body parts on or in the surviving twin, but when complete absorption occurs,
Continue reading
After it is ascertained that Amauche Benson is still securely locked up in the psychiatric hospital at Yaba, naturally the police turn their attention to her twin sister, Chisom.
“Young lady, how do you now explain how that girl ended up in your kitchen then?” a policeman asks, tone brash, his eyes narrow with suspicion.
They are standing outside Chisom’s house; two policemen
They called her The Ember Killer.
Named after the notorious ‘ember months’, coined by superstitious Nigerians obsessed with the spate of fatal accidents and misfortune that seemed to thrive in the last four months of the year. Those were the months in which she began her murderous spree.
Mid-September had seen the discovery of what Amauche Benson claimed was the third victim, a French lecturer in the University Continue reading
1990
Gbagada, Lagos
6.p.m
There is nothing overtly unusual about the scenes in and around Emeka Okorie’s one room apartment that evening. Continue reading
“Nigeria is a poultry. The masses are the hens, the government is the farmer. And we are all waiting for christmas.”
– Adeosun Adams Mercy
It was the eve of the presidential election, the night the General was declared winner. We were at Aso Rock, eating meat and dancing reggae. It was a buffet. Continue reading
Roger was tired. He’d answered many names and lived in many times. When at first he was spelled to live forever, he’d been joyful but he hadn’t thought forever could be so long.
From city to city he rode, his purpose clear as day but not even the deadliest of soldiers could give him what he desperately wanted.
On and on, he sojourned until he came by an old city where the legend of Lilith held sway. It was of this Lilith mothers said to their sons: “For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.”
At the forbidden end of the town where words were Continue reading
The first thing Sharon Nwosu noticed about the mad woman, apart from her immediately apparent scraggly appearance, was her eyes. Narrow, beady and squeezed into their sockets underneath heavy lids and sparse lashes, they bore at once an intensity that gave her gaunt face a crazed mien, and an eerie intelligence that unnerved Sharon.
Another thing that unnerved Sharon was the grip the mad woman had Continue reading
